


Scared

by redtrouble



Series: Demonheart: Through the Eyes of Sir Brash [6]
Category: Demonheart (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 04:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15135230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redtrouble/pseuds/redtrouble
Summary: Sir Brash saves Bright from having her heart eaten! (Spoilers 'cause...just go play it already!) Rated M for mature language and brief, graphic violence.





	Scared

Sir Brash stared at the empty place she should have been standing as his heart jumped up into his throat—or would have, if he still had a heart. One minute he had been cursing the swamp and the next he was frantically looking left and right. Where was she? Where the fuck was she?

“Bright,” he called, cutting through the tangle of underbrush. “Bright!” He reached the rotting log he had last seen her standing near. “This isn’t funny, kitten! Come on out, now.” He turned around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her firehair among all that green but she just wasn’t there. “ _Bright!_ ”

Jasper crashed through the overgrowth. “What happened?” he exclaimed. Tunes appeared near him, arrow knocked. “Why are you calling for Bright?”

“Take a look around, idiot,” Brash barked and drew his sword. “She’s gone!”

“And so is Fisher…” Tunes observed.

Jasper pulled his sword, fear bunching up his face. “Do you think they’re together? I hope nothing happened.”

Brash knew the kid was thinking of the worgs but he knew better. The beasts would have outright attacked them and made an ungodly amount of noise when they did, not stealthily dragged them off into the woods without so much as a scream. Either the old man did something to her or…or she had finally had enough of him and taken off.

Brash tightened his grip on his sword and cursed. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way he had treated her in the watchtower, and he was fucking sure she couldn’t either. But was she so upset that she would run away from him? He didn’t want to think about it—that he had driven her away. He didn’t want that. It was the opposite of how he felt, and that was the issue. He wanted her to stay with him, to belong to him, always—and she couldn’t because he was always going to have to give her up, even before he met her. So he sought her out and pushed her away because she made him fucking crazy and he was losing control, and she probably had whiplash by now. He wouldn’t blame her for running away from him, as stupid as that fucking was. And it _was_ fucking stupid! How could she be so stupid? Didn’t she know how dangerous it was out there? Didn’t she know he was her only chance to stay alive?

“Fuck!” he yelled as his guilt reminded him that his mission would kill her, rubbing salt in the wound. “Spread out!” he ordered the Feline warriors. “Find her!”

Jasper nodded and went back the way they came. Tunes went off to the right. Rage and fear wrestled in his gut as he whirled around, scrying the landscape for some sign of her passage. Moss on the tree was smeared, rotted wood scraped. He looked over it and saw stomped undergrowth. He jumped over the log and followed the trail of broken branches and snapped greenery.

“Bright!” he called as he pushed into the brush. Where the fuck was she? Could she hear him? Was she ignoring him or was she in trouble? How the fuck was he supposed to catch her with that speed of hers? “Bright!”

A wisp of red caught his eye and he pulled a long strand of her hair off a twig. He sheathed his sword and started running, barreling through the overgrowth. A woman screamed and he immediately changed his trajectory, veering toward the right. A makeshift path opened up and he followed it, noting the tracks in the soggy earth. She screamed again and again, the sound growing louder as he drew nearer. His blood was rushing in his ears, lungs burning, and he could have sworn his heart was behind his ribcage with the way his chest tightened in aching fear.

A clearing appeared and he saw two people wrestling behind the greenery. Brash drew his sword and broke through the bushes. Fisher was on top of her, eyes crazed, a knife plunged into her chest. He looked up in absolute shock just as Brash’s sword came down on his shoulder, splitting him all the way to his belly. Blood gushed as his guts opened up. He kicked the bastard off of her and cradled her in his arms, trying to figure out how much damage had been done.

Blood speckled her face but all her wounds were below her neck. Fisher had caught her under her arm beneath the pauldron, probably to cripple her with the pain. There were frenzied stab marks on her breastplate, scratches mostly as the knife skittered off metal and leather, but he’d managed to dig his dagger into the vulnerable spot between her pauldron and breastplate. He had clearly struggled with the latches on her breastplate when he unbound them. He couldn’t take it off, just nearly choked her on it as he tried to pry it far enough from her body to dig a hole in her chest.

Brash’s fingers swept along the tattered flesh that was already healing. Fisher hadn’t had enough time to do any damage. All she would show for it was a few new scars… Brash let out a heavy breath and hung his head. She was okay. He didn’t get her heart. She would make it. She was okay. He dug her tattered dress out of her discarded satchel and tried to mop up the blood but it was everywhere.

And as his hands swung over her sopping undershirt and scarred breastplate, he realized he was actually trembling. He stopped what he was doing and looked at his hand as it shook. Had to be the adrenaline, the rage—not because he had been scared, so fucking scared.

He threw the bloody dress away and stood up. He had to get his nerves under control before she came to. He turned circles in the mud before he thought to move Fisher’s corpse away from her. He hoisted him up by the collar, dragged him a few feet down the road, and threw him against the brush. He paced for a couple of minutes, thoughts bouncing between utter relief that she was okay and wanting to know why she ran away from him.

As he paced, he noticed an apple lying on the ground. It must have fallen out of Fisher’s pack. He started to reach for it when she stirred. He immediately forgot the apple and went to her, frowning. He was making a fist before he realized it.

“Damn, girl, you really need a good beating!” he growled as her eyes fluttered open.

“Sir…Brash…?” she groaned.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“You saved me…” Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Shut up—”

“Let me explain! Please!” She shakily pushed herself up as words were pouring out of her, voice trembling. “He told me to run—I said _no_. He grabbed me—kept pulling on me. He was strong—I didn’t expect that! I didn’t think he would—I just didn’t want you to hurt him—I thought I could double back—I didn’t know—”

So she didn’t want to leave him. Could he really fucking believe that? How could he? He wanted to, but his guilt was screaming at him not to be so fucking naïve. After everything he had done, why the fuck would she want to stay?

 “Be quiet,” Brash said as gently as possible, but it still sounded like a growl, “and fix that armor. It’s torn pretty badly.” He shook his head, had to look away. It was still too much to see her that way. “I tried to clean you from the blood, but it got everywhere… Fuck this shit.”

Her fingers struggled with the buckles, shaking and slipping on blood. She winced in pain several times as she adjusted her armor. Her body was still healing. When she got to her feet, she noticed Fisher’s body and gasped. Brash glanced at the forgotten fruit.

“Oh, look. He had an apple.” He snatched it up and tossed it at her. To both of their surprise, she caught it. “Good to see you can move,” he said, shifting his stance to put him in her line of sight, blocking Fisher’s corpse so she didn’t have to see it.

Bright ran her fingernails over the apple skin, staring at it. “How did you find us?”

“Guess I’m good at tracking you down, kitten,” he replied. “You leave your fur everywhere. That pretty hair of yours…”

She raised her eyes to meet his and he found he couldn’t look at her—couldn’t look at her because he was hurt. Like some wounded dog with his tail between his legs. She had run away from him… Even if he felt like he deserved it, he didn’t want it. Running away meant she didn’t trust him. She could be angry at him, could hate him— _should_ hate him—could want nothing to do with him, and he could live with that. But he couldn’t live with her losing faith in him… Why did she fucking run?

“Brash—”

“I would never have expected this from you, kitty girl,” he said, looking at the trees instead. Why did she fucking run? Because of Fisher? “Yes, Sir-ing me all the time, and then…” He swiped his hand over his mouth. Why couldn’t she have chosen him? “You’ve just been fucking waiting to run away!”

“I didn’t. I swear to you.”

He couldn’t stand it. He _couldn’t_. He wanted to believe her but he didn’t deserve it.

“Normally, this deserves a punishment…” He glanced at her, saw her hopeful expression, and found another tree to stare at. “I’ll forgive you. But only because we’re out of time—”

The apple hit the ground and rolled. Suddenly, her arms were around him. He froze.

“Thank you for finding me,” she whispered against his armor. “Thank you for saving me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

He just couldn’t stand it. He had saved this girl’s life and, in a few hours, he would hand her to Rivera. He might as well kill her himself. How the fuck did any of this make any sense? It was killing him. He couldn’t stand it.

Brash wrapped his fingers around her arms and gently pushed her away. “We have to get a move on,” he said, staring over the top of her pretty, red head. “It doesn’t look like he’s regenerating, so we can just leave him here.” He scoffed. “This old fool was hoping to become a demonheart at this age? Hah!”

“Regenerating,” she echoed. “You mean, in case he was already a demonheart.”

He nodded. “It’s a good habit to check, just in case—stay with the corpses for a little while just to make sure they don’t get up.” He finally looked at her. She was still a little pale and seemed unsteady on her feet. “Give me your hand,” he murmured and extended his. “Don’t faint on me.”

She smiled ever so briefly and nodded then placed her hand in his. It was so small compared to his. He could crush it without trying. When he looked into her eyes, he found she was looking at him, too, directly into his eyes, unafraid.

Brash gently closed his fingers over hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I wound up changing this scene just a little from the VN, which is something I've tried my best not to do throughout the course of this Brash POV series. I debated even writing it, but I really wanted to explore Brash in a moment that we as players don't get to see: realizing Bright's gone and trying to find her. Now, in the game, if you don't run away, Brash appears to murder Fisher in cold blood. The only way to reveal Fisher's true colors is to willingly run away. As a player, I really like that moment when Fisher turns on you. It surprised me! I think it was a good lesson for Bright and will contribute to her character development. And yet even when I approached that moment when playing, I didn't see her running away, not to save herself. I thought of leaving only to save Fisher, who was very likely going to get himself killed with all of his interference, so I wanted to tweak the scene to show that adjustment. Whether or not Brash believes her...well, that's up to Brash! :P
> 
> I justified my reasoning that Bright didn't actually want to escape Brash by the fact that she didn't go very far. Since Bright could easily outrun Fisher and he was able to keep up with her, I have to assume that she didn't use her power. They couldn't have run too far, especially since Brash caught up with them just in time to save her. So I was able to twist that to suit my needs!
> 
> Also, I had to tweak Bright's recovery time due to not being as wounded in the story as she was in the game. I know every movie and video game in the history of the universe is guilty of ye ole stabbed-through-the-armor ploy, but I just couldn't make myself do it. Maybe if Fisher really had been a demonheart, he could've stabbed through her armor...but the armor itself wouldn't regenerate, making it useless later in chapter 4, so I tried to find a logical medium!


End file.
